African American news blog that features news that may get little or no coverage in the mainstream media

Friday, May 26, 2017

Alabama governor signs Confederate monuments preservation bill

Wow, some still don't want to acknowledge that a group of traitors to the United States lost the Civil War, and still want to fawn statues of losers who thought slavery was just fine. Against the objections of black law makers Alabama's Republican Governor Kay Ivey signed a bill that protects most Civil War Monuments. George L. Cook III.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday signed into law sweeping protections for Confederate and other long-standing monuments, a move that comes as some Southern cities remove Confederate monuments from public grounds.

"Contrary to what its detractors say, the Memorial Preservation Act is intended to preserve all of Alabama's history -- the good and the bad -- so our children and grandchildren can learn from the past to create a better future," Allen said.

The new Alabama law prohibits the removal and alteration of monuments more than 40 years old. It also prohibits renaming schools that have carried a person's name for more than 40 years. A new commission would have to approve changes to those between 20 and 40 years old.

African-American lawmakers opposed the bill at every step of the legislative process. They argued that the monuments pay tribute to the shameful legacy of slavery.

"You say we are protecting history. We are not protecting history. We are protecting monuments that represent oppression to a large part of the people in the state of Alabama," Sen. Hank Sanders, an African-American Democrat from Selma, said during the debate.